Humanverse

Geraldine vs Gerarda

American parents have registered 212,097 Geraldines since 1880, against 158 Gerardas. Geraldine is still ahead, with 73 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Geraldine against Gerarda, 1880 to 2025 0 1.5k 3k 4.5k 6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Geraldine Gerarda

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Geraldine has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1992, when Geraldine had 153 and Gerarda had 5.

Side by side

  Geraldine Gerarda
Total US births 212,097158
Most in one year 5,47110
Babies in 2025 73under 5
Estimated living today 77,00090
Median age today 7670
Peak year 19301917
Best rank 43rd girls2,879th girls
Rank in 2025 2,438thunranked
First recorded 18801916
Girls / boys 211,349 / 748158 / 0

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Geraldines alive today are over 76; half the Gerardas are over 70. That is 6 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Geraldine Gerarda
France 43,64020

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Geraldine and Gerarda.